


some nights last for years

by badskeletonpuns



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, samben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 05:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16528088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns
Summary: Sammy and Ben have lived together for months. They both get nightmares and when that coincides, it's better to ride out the fear and sadness together than it is to try and bear the feelings alone. There's a LOT of feelings.





	some nights last for years

**Author's Note:**

> hello all it's me, samben mcgee. back from the dead because i learned that sammy and ben have LIVED TOGETHER for MONTHS and that means i am LEGALLY REQUIRED to write samben domestic fluff. let me know if you liked it! this ship is very small but i'm never going to stop sailing it. also thanks 2 scott siegel for the title idea, from his poem "days."

It was cold in the apartment Sammy and Ben now shared. The one that they had shared for months. 

Still, Sammy was pretty certain anything was better than being back alone in his old place. It made more of a difference than he thought it would have to be able to wake up to someone else just down the hall. 

He couldn’t pretend that the nights they fell asleep piled on top of each other on Ben’s old couch weren’t pretty great as well. 

Sammy still had a hard time believing that Ben had let him stay here, that Ben  _ wanted _ him to stay here. For the first few weeks he had obsessively cleaned and tidied things, trying his best to be a model roommate. He’d made most of the meals and tried to never leave a single dish anywhere in the house. 

One time Ben came home early from a date with Emily to find Sammy trying to move the refrigerator to sweep underneath it, and he’d convinced Sammy to cool it at least a little bit with the constant cleaning and cooking. 

Sammy still liked to make breakfast, though. 

It helped that Ben was adorable as hell in the mornings, all slow blinks and hair standing at impossible angles. He smiled at Sammy whenever there was food ready, beamed like Sammy was an angel sent from overnight oats heaven and not a middle-aged man who had to sleep with the light on and  _ still _ tended to get nightmares every few nights. 

Tonight was one of those nightmare nights. Luckily it hadn’t been one of the screaming nights, so Ben was still sound asleep in his own room. Sammy sat with his knees to his chest on an armchair in the living room. 

He hadn’t turned on any of the lights, even turning off the one in his own room on the way out. 

God. He missed Jack. 

And it wasn’t Ben’s fault, it wasn’t Lilly’s fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault but Sammy’s. Time and time again. He’d let Jack slip away. Hell, he’d probably driven him away by not wanting to hear about the paranormal stuff all of the time. The spectre of Jack’s laugh, of his smile… It haunted him still. Every time he made a joke and Ben started cracking up, Sammy got closer and closer to snapping. 

He just wanted the people he loved to be safe. Was that too much to ask? 

Ben didn’t look anything like Jack, shouldn’t have sounded anything like him either. But Sammy still saw his former fiance in his best friend every goddamn day.

Someday he was going to trip up. 

Like the time Ben had convinced him to go out on a walk around their neighborhood to look at the fall leaves and when he’d come back, the house had smelled delicious. 

Ben had been in the kitchen, humming along to one of those Christmas songs that had been stuck in everyone’s heads for weeks after the Gwendolyn incident. He had been stirring a pot on the stove, filled with something Sammy couldn’t see but that smelled like heaven in a stew. 

It had taken a lot not to walk over and wrap his arms around Ben’s waist. To kiss the top of his head and let Ben turn in his arms to kiss him back. 

But Sammy knew that if he had done that, kissing him back would not be what Ben did. He shook his head, breaking apart the fantasy.

Ben was perfectly happy with Emily. And even if he hadn’t been, Sammy was a goddamn mess that didn’t deserve someone as bright as Ben, not anymore. Besides. It wasn’t like Jack could move on from Sammy, wherever he was in the void. Sammy shouldn’t get to move on either. 

He pulled his legs up closer to his chest until his lungs were cramped and it was difficult to take in a full breath. 

The vents clicked on somewhere in the apartment automatically, and the air that rushed over him from the nearest one hadn’t quite warmed up yet. Sammy shivered. Goosebumps raised along his arms and neck, despite the way he rubbed at his arms in an effort to keep warm. He could get up and get a blanket from the hallway closet. 

He didn’t get up. 

Ben’s apartment (their apartment, Sammy reminded himself) wasn’t carpeted, and the wooden floors had a tendency to creak at inopportune moments. He didn’t want to risk waking up Bem. It was unlikely that the sound of his bare feet on the cold floor would be too loud, but it was a miracle that he’d made it to the armchair without anything creaking in the first place. 

Sammy sighed. He tipped his head forward to rest on his knees and let his hair fall into his face. In the already dim room, it was all he needed to block out the rest of the world. 

That was, until he heard a door opening and shutting down the hallway to the bedrooms. Shit. He’d woken up Ben. 

If Sammy listened carefully, he could just make out the sounds of Ben shuffling down the hallway. That was the closet door whining on its hinges, probably Ben getting a blanket? That was Ben stubbing his toe on the baseboards and swearing softly. 

The expected click of the light switch didn’t come. Sammy didn’t realized that he’d tensed at the thought of it until Ben put a hand on his shoulder and the tension drained out him all at once. 

“Hey, buddy,” Ben murmured. 

“Sorry I woke up you up.” 

The warm weight of a blanket settled over Sammy in the chair, and he lifted his head enough to make out Ben through the blond curtain of his hair. 

Ben was smiling. It was hard to make out anything with only the feeble moonlight and flickering street lamps coming in from through the window, but Sammy could make out that much. “I was already awake,” Ben said. 

Sammy couldn’t help a snort. “Yeah, you just happened to be awake at the same time your neurotic friend stomped down the hallway like an elephant at two am.” 

“You’re not the only one with nightmares,” Ben pointed out. Sammy winced. 

“Yeah, alright, you got me there,” he admitted.

Ben leaned forward, knocking their foreheads together gently. “Don’t worry about it, seriously. Like I said, I was already awake. I just noticed that your light was off and it isn’t normally, and I know you’re like a grown man and all but, you know, I just kind of worry sometimes?”

“Ben,” Sammy interrupted. 

“Hm?” Ben seemed to snap back into his own mind and grinned at Sammy sheepishly. “Oops. Rambling.” 

Sammy shook his head. “I don’t mind. If I’m not allowed to feel guilty for making you get out bed and come get me a blanket, then you aren’t allowed to feel guilty for talking. Besides, I like hearing you talk.” 

“Assuming you could make me do anything? Bold move, Sammy,” Ben teased. 

It was hard to tell in the low light, with the shadows cast across Ben’s face and the way they shifted with every movement he made, but… Sammy thought that maybe Ben was blushing. 

“What are your nightmares about?” he blurted, unable to take much more of the quiet night, of Ben looking at him with those dark eyes so deep. He grimaced almost as soon as the words came out of his mouth and shook his head again, more forcefully. “Nevermind. You don’t have to answer that.” 

“No, no, Sammy, it’s okay.” Ben paused for a second and then moved to sit on the arm of the chair. “Scooch over, nightmares are a topic that requires close company and it’s like, weirdly cold in here.” 

“Far be it from me to disagree.” Sammy moved over as much as he could, but the chair really wasn’t made for two people. He lifted up his blanket to allow Ben to slip under it as well. By the time the two of them were settled, Ben was honestly sitting more on Sammy than he was on the chair. 

Sammy couldn’t bring himself to mind. 

Besides, unrequited secret crushes aside, it was a lot warmer with a human blanket and a regular blanket on top of him. 

“So,” Ben began, quiet enough that Sammy almost couldn’t hear him. “It’s not like, anything new? It’s mainly the lights.” 

“Those  _ fucking  _ lights,” Sammy muttered, unable to keep the vehemence from his voice. 

“Couldn’t have said it better myself. Anyway…” Ben trailed off for a moment, staring at the sliver of night sky visible outside of his window. Sammy couldn’t take his eyes off of him. “Like I said. The lights. I’m in the station, always, and you’re never there—don’t apologize, it’s not your fault—and half the time you’re not there because. Because, well, it’s you being chased by the lights. I’m on air and you’re on your way to the station or Emily is, or, or Tim, or Troy,” and Ben’s voice was cracking, and Sammy knew he couldn’t kiss him but  _ god _ did he ever want to. “And I can’t do anything, ever, I just have to listen while everyone—fuck—everyone I’ve ever thought about gets taken away, and.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yeah. That’s about the long and short of it.” 

“Jack in the box Jesus,” Sammy sighed. He held Ben as close as he dared, as close as was completely platonic and comforting as could be. “I’m sorry, buddy. I know it’s not my fault, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still sorry. You deserve better.” 

Ben sniffled, pressing his face into Sammy’s shirt. “You do too,” he got out.

“Don’t we all,” Sammy acquiesced, unwilling to get into the details of his own fucked-up sense of self worth at this particular moment. Ben needed comfort, not… Whatever that would bring up. 

Sammy took a risk. He brought one of his hands up from the blanket and began to stroke gently through Ben’s hair. It was massively tangled, curls twisting into one another in Gordian knots of stress and fear. 

Ben hummed a little in response, but didn’t say anything. 

So Sammy kept going. 

Ben seemed to unwind under the gentle strokes. Sammy pulled his hand over his best friend’s hair as carefully as he could, untangling whatever knots didn’t seem too easily tugged on or painful. “Is this… okay?” he asked, after a long minute of quiet. 

“Don’t stop, m’gonna go to sleep,” Ben mumbled. “S’comfy.” 

“Do you really want to sleep here?” Sammy asked, pausing his movements for the moment. He left his hand cupping the back of Ben’s neck. 

Ben pulled away from Sammy just far enough to glare at him through barely open eyes. “It’s comfy,” he said again, and raised an eyebrow. “Although it’s a lot  _ less _ comfy now that someone has stopped petting me.” 

Sammy laughed. He wasn’t sure how else to respond. 

The goosebumps on his arms and neck weren’t from the vent anymore. 

God, Ben was so damn close. 

Moonlight played over his features in a river of marble light, like Ben was a classical statue or the moon itself or anything else equally as untouchable. 

“Just saying that if we fall asleep here, we’re definitely going to wake up with a neckache.”

“Maybe you will, old man,” Ben said. He was grinning at Sammy now, glare gone. He leaned forward to press his forehead to Sammy’s again, softer, this time. Leaving himself close enough that Sammy could feel the warmth of Ben’s breath on his face. “I’m young and strong,” Ben continued. “Able to sleep anywhere I put my mind too.” 

“Ben,” Sammy started, and his voice cracked and he had to stop and swallow a lump that had appeared in his throat. “Ben, not that I, I mean.” He took a deep breath. “Would Emily—”

“Emily,” Ben said, cutting him off, “knows exactly how I feel about her. And about you.” 

“About me?” Sammy asked. His voice was smaller than he’d meant it to be. Quieter. 

“About you,” Ben confirmed, and then he was tilting his head just the smallest amount and his lips were on Sammy’s and he was so warm, so gentle, so close. 

Something wet was on Sammy’s cheeks and when he and Ben pulled away from each other, he realized that it was tears. He couldn’t even tell whose. 

There were tears pooling in the corners of Ben’s eyes, to be sure, but Sammy was definitely sniffling himself. “I love you,” he said, unable to keep the words in for seconds longer. 

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Ben said, and then he was leaning to kiss Sammy again. And again, and again. He tasted like salt and was so careful as he twisted in Sammy’s lap to straddle his legs, pushing the blanket off to one side. 

It was a lot hotter than it had been a few seconds ago. 

Ben had his hands on either side of Sammy’s face and couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to keep beaming at Sammy or kissing him. He shook his head, blurring his features together. “I love you too,” he said, barely getting the words out. “I just. Um. Wanted to make sure I said that.” 

“I know, buddy,” Sammy said, his own smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I know.” 

And he pulled Ben down to kiss him again. So maybe neither of them could sleep and who knew how many people were still in the void and the town was being taken over by the Himinists. 

Whatever ended up happening, they wouldn’t have to face it alone. 


End file.
